


The Wall

by greglet



Category: Almost Human
Genre: How the wall happened, the wall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 10:36:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7219045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greglet/pseuds/greglet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a brief hc piece on how the wall in Almost Human could've come about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wall

**Author's Note:**

> Just a wee thing that I had been thinking about since there's a huge wall around one half of a city and no explanation for it.

Global warming had been the primary concern for the Mayor at the time and living in a city that had been pushing green for 20 years with a light oncoming of preparation for the worst, the wall was inevitable. The idea was taken from a presidential candidate who wanted to use a wall to be discriminatory at country borders while instead, the city wanted to use it for something for pro-active. Rising tides were affecting cities on the coast, that much was clear and widely accepted. In the beachy suburbs people were already losing their boundaries to the sea and were quickly learning to just abandon their properties and start again more in-land. 

In the city, however, there was another issue. While the skyscrapers of the newest and greenest tech companies in the country were a thirty minute drive from the beach, it was the river and harbour that flowed through the urban environment that was giving people cause for concern. The river had burst it’s banks on numerous occasions during the winter months and frankly, the damage was starting to cost too much to repair every time it rained. The council had to think of something else.

The first ideas were dams. More dams. Since the river came from the mountains, ran all through hill and dale and was then held by one of the biggest dams the world had seen, never mind the country, more smaller dams were not really going to be of much help if the first one burst. So, again, counsellors and congressmen, presidents and citizens were back to square one. Until, of course, they took the idea of the wall. 

The wall would be built around the banks of the river but following the rectangular blocks of the city rather than the curving banks themselves. This would mean that the wall would have a suitable foundation in the hard granite the city was built on rather than the soft mud of the river. The only good thing that came of the harsh presidential candidates’ very close call of being elected was that he had readied construction crews to build his wall - construction crews that were easily swayed to build the wall for this city instead. The only difference was that with a small surge in technology, parts of the wall would be able to elevate and descend so as not to give the idea that the citizens were trapped in a box. 

Still, there was another issue and that was that rivers have banks on both sides and when one flowed through a city, the city was then divided. People on the less fortunate, less high tech and less modern side of the river protested like their lives depended on it, but as with most things in life, those with the higher level of donation were heard more clearly and the project went ahead.

It took a few years, much more money than originally planned, a few different Mayors and two presidents before the wall was complete. Positivity and support for the wall was powered in winter but flailing in summer, but the elected figures in the city accepted this and generally ignored the summer protests when they came. 

It proved more than useful in the winter of ‘18 when the dam that held it all together all those miles away started to show signs of it’s age. Three large cracks were leaking enough water to cause panic in the city. Supermarket shelves were empty, gas and fuel had all but disappeared and the streets were ghostly in wait for the dam to burst and the first true test of the wall they built to commence. There was great relief when the thundering waves crashed off the wall and were carried around the city, leaving no damage except to the more delicate minded citizens. There was a higher migration by the end of that year and start of the next, but it had settled eventually. 

Or, at least, it had settled on one side. The other side had become rowdy, messy, violent and dangerous. People in the modern side were getting scared of the chaos spilling onto their well kept streets and the police could feel the strain. It was manageable until weapons were brought into it. It seemed some of the more intelligent and die-for-a-cause individuals had got their hands on technology no singular police department could deal with and after a night of all out war, both sides were counting losses.   
In response to a battle that didn’t look like it was going to stop any time soon, the officials at the time took the decision to start cutting supplies off in the hope that there would be an agreement reached quicker. Yet, to the surprise of those officials, it would seem that cutting off food and medical supplies only made people more desperate and more dangerous than they already were. 

The decision to continue cutting the people off and leaving them even without a steady supply of electricity, was taken too lightly for some of those on the modern side of the wall who, although worried about the danger the others posed, did not want to abandon a whole side of their city. Still, they were overruled and no one tried to stop them as they raised one part of the wall indefinitely. 

Years went on and the stigma attached to the wall grew. Those who remained within it’s shadow were known as criminals; murderers and vandals, who would bring no good to the now calm and friendly open streets of the city. The city itself was no longer thought of as ‘divided’. It was whole again and maybe they still had crime, and yes it could be seen to be on the rise, but with a new intake of police officers and a trial of new android partners it was thought be soon under wraps. 

Of course, by the time John Kennex was the detective he had aimed to be, crime was at an astounding level, the MX’s were a lifeless step back from the DRN’s and the wall was just another problem on his long list. Especially now, when people like Nigel Vaughn had disappeared and John couldn’t quite bring himself to be so certain Dorian was wrong in thinking Nigel had jumped the wall anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to disagree or w/e i just wanted to write a thing about it and this sort of makes sense a bit to me (since i haven't seen any other ideas about how it got there).


End file.
